DETER-ing Deforestation in the Amazon: Environmental Monitoring and Law Enforcement

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Assuncao, Juliano; Gandour, Clarissa; Rocha, Romero
• 署名单位: Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio de Janeiro; Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio de Janeiro; Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20200196
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 125-156
• 关键词: electoral cycles; brazilian amazon; CLIMATE-CHANGE; police; crime; LAND; air; regulations; incentives; pollution

摘要

We study Brazil's recent use of satellite technology to overcome law enforcement shortcomings resulting from weak institutional envi-ronments. DETER is a system that processes satellite imagery and issues near-real-time deforestation alerts to target environmental enforcement in the Amazon. We propose a novel instrumental vari-able approach for estimating enforcement's impact on deforesta-tion. Clouds limiting DETER's capacity to detect clearings serve as a source of exogenous variation for the presence of environmen-tal authorities. Findings indicate that monitoring and enforcement effectively curb deforestation. Results hold across several robustness checks. (JEL K32, K42, O13, Q23, Q28, Q54, Q58)